He had no idea what the job he was being hired for was, but he didn’t have a choice now. He hated feeling so blind. Kat was still there at the console, and Flint felt his pulse racing. “Maybe we should go check engineering?” He tried to make it sound like a suggestion, but it came out like he was barking orders.
Kat flinched.
“I’m sorry, Kat,” he said. She’d just killed someone for him, and she was holding it together fairly well, considering. They got up and walked toward the back of the ship.
It didn’t take long for them to determine the issue. The gunfire from the Marines had punctured the drive. It couldn’t start without a full vacuum and seal.
“Can you fix it?” Flint asked.
Kat nodded. “I can. If you can help, we should have it closed up in no time.” She left the room, and he followed, stopping to look at the spot where the two Marines had died on his deck. He stepped around the area and headed toward the storage room, where they grabbed an assortment of tools.
Two hours later, after three shots of Mars whisky and more swearing than a pub after pay day, the job was done. “Damn, Kat, you know your way around a patch kit. And I didn’t even know we had a sterilizer.”
“That’s why you have me around, right?” she asked. Her spirits were up, the hard work setting her mind back on track.
“You think it’ll work?” Flint asked, hoping she did.
Kat nodded. “It’ll work, or you can drop me off at the nearest space port. As long as there’s a spa there.” She laughed, and he found himself relaxing. If they left now, they’d be at Europa in a couple of days, and they could pretend this whole misadventure never happened.
Kat ran to the bridge and Flint followed, watching the younger woman vault over the back of the seat, landing softly on the synthetic leather. Her fingers moved deftly, and he observed as the engine icon glowed red for an instant before turning green.
“We’re go, Captain Lancaster,” Kat said. Flint’s heart was in his throat for a moment, and he breathed a sigh of relief as the ship hummed once again.
“Take us out. Destination, Europa.” Flint didn’t know what they were getting into, but he hoped he could shake the revelation they’d discovered on their way there. Otherwise, the Fleet would be back, and the next time, he doubted he’d be quite as lucky.
Wren
Alarms rang out as the ship lurched. CD6 might have had the basic cognitive comprehension of how to fly the ship, but he didn’t have the soft touches that years of being a natural pilot brought along with them. They jostled around, and more than once, Wren wondered if the ship even had the inertia dampeners that had come standard on every vessel for the last two hundred years.
“Does this thing have seatbelts?” she asked, feeling around the seat for strapping. She found it just in time, and held on as they lifted to the ceiling.
“I cannot seem to open the passageway,” CD6 said matter-of-factly.
“What does that mean?” Wren asked with a tremor in her voice. She couldn’t go back.
“It means I blast our way out.” He didn’t turn his head as his hand found the triggers. She watched as he zoomed in, targeting a circular hatch in the tunnel. Without another word, he tapped the trigger, blasting the hatch to pieces. Bits and fragments rained down on the ship, hitting their shields and shoving them around more.
“That did the trick. Let’s get out of here!” Wren said. She knew there would be more security once they got out. What she didn’t expect was the miles and miles of tunnels they traveled through. CD6 held them somewhat steady as they careened through the corridor. He only rubbed the walls a few times, the shields keeping them from losing any parts of the ship on the hard metal partitions.
“How far down are we?” Wren asked. When they’d arrived, they hadn’t seen anything. She didn’t even know they were underground. She’d always just assumed they were near the surface of Caliban.
“The prison is only twenty kilometers below the ground. We will be free of the tunnel in under two minutes.” The answer instantly poured out of CD6 as they jostled upward, stretching toward the rocky surface of the moon.
His timing was accurate, as Wren counted the seconds out in her head to keep herself from panicking. The dome closing off the tunnel lifted as their ship neared, and she was grateful they hadn’t had to blast this one away as well.
Wren closed her eyes as they breached the surface, half expecting to find an armed militia waiting to shoot them down to their deaths. When she finally had the courage to peer between her fingers, she saw nothing of the sort. There was only blue-tinged ice as far as the eye could see in all directions. As they lifted, Wren found she could switch the camera angles, and she scanned through them until she found one aiming behind the ship.
There was no sign of pursuit. Already, as they raced into the sky, she couldn’t tell where the opening to the prison tunnel was. It was hidden in the vastness of the empty landscape.
When she started to relax, she saw two blinking green lights on the ship’s console.
“CD6, we might have a problem. Incoming.” She pointed to the screen, and the android turned to look at her.
“Automated drone defense. They should be easy enough to shoot down,” he said.
She wanted to laugh. She knew next to nothing about ships like this. “And how is that done?”
“Here,” he said, tapping the console in front of her. “The ship has its own weapons, as you saw when I blasted through the corridor doors. Aim and fire.” One of the drones appeared behind them on the radar, and she watched the viewscreen switch angles to show the twenty-foot-long drone fire an orange glowing pulse toward them. The ship shook, and CD6 tapped the console. A red beam blasted behind them, striking the drone with a direct hit. It exploded, and Wren let out a cheer.
She switched the view feed to the side of their ship, where the second drone was now firing on them. An alarm rang out as their shield’s energy depleted. “Point and shoot,” she muttered to herself, missing the drone on the first three attempts. Finally, she struck it, though not enough for a kill shot.
CD6 maneuvered away from it, but the drone kept to them like a dog on a leash. It fired again, and they heaved to the side. Her target glowed on the console, and she fired again, this time hitting it dead center. It exploded, and Wren let out a sigh of relief as CD6 raced away from the debris.
With a deep breath, she watched their stolen ship enter the vastness of space at high velocity. They passed a large moon, one she remembered was named Oberon, and saw the tower built onto it, which acted as a transmission device from the old world. Those towers had been built wherever a colony had been first placed, but humanity quickly outgrew the technology. Now they stood as a testament of how far they’d come as a race.
Wren thought she saw a light flashing on the tip of the thousand-kilometer tower, but when she focused on it as they soared by, it didn’t blink again.
The enormity of what had just occurred hit Wren like a slap in the face as they left Uranus and its satellites vicinity behind. “You did it, CD6!” She ran behind him and wrapped her arms around the cold metal android.
He turned in his seat, his orange eyes glowing brightly as he stared at her a moment before speaking. “I supposed we did. We’re free from the Uranus Mining Prison for Women.” It sounded so formal when he spoke in his monotone pattern. “Where to now?”
Wren laughed, a throaty, deep sound, as she thought about his question. She had absolutely no idea where to go.
Jish
Jish Karn had found her happy place. Being out here in the midst of their Fleet’s undisclosed construction site gave her a new perspective of it all. Before, they were just ideas thrown around a giant boardroom; but now, among the robotics and welding drones, she felt a kinship to the job she hadn’t felt before.
This time, as she stepped into the elevator, she didn’t let fear cloud her mind. She lowered to the hidden floor of her ship, grabbed her stunner, and marched down the narrow h
all with purpose. The door slid open, and she walked directly for the barrier across the room.
The cell ceilings were ten feet tall: enough room for the captive to stretch his long arms if necessary. She wasn’t a barbarian. He was fed daily, the cell cleaned twice a week. Of course, they had to sedate him then. She’d seen him under the influence of sedatives at least ten times over the years, but had stopped when she realized she felt sorry for the dozing creature.
There was always a nagging thought at the back of her head that the beings from the Rift were mere observers, not a threat to humanity, but she pushed the idea away. She’d been there thirty years ago. The aliens would be preparing an invasion; of that, Jish had no doubt.
The alien stood as she neared, and she could see sadness in his usually hostile expression. He looked thinner than he ever had, his matted gray hair missing in clumps. He was still huge and imposing, but she worried now that he was sick. She didn’t have anyone on her team she could trust with his healthcare, so she’d have to get the android to run a scan next time they injected the alien.
The alien stood over seven feet tall, his arms long and flexible, almost like tentacles. Their eyes locked for a mere second before he turned and found the console.
Jish’s heart sped up in her chest, and her fingertips quivered. He was going to communicate with her. All these years, she’d been waiting for this moment.
She crossed to the wall and picked up a portable holoscreen, its light illuminating her face.
“What do you have to say?” She whispered the question and saw his head tilt to the side.
Her screen was linked to the one in the cell, and he brought up a map of their solar system. He zoomed, moving the icon from the location where the Rift opened every thirty years. He moved it farther and farther in-system, and the Grand Admiral’s biggest fears came true the moment he stopped with an image of Earth covering the entire screen.
The captive alien touched the console, opening the writing tools they’d programmed into it. With a red paintbrush effect, he began making angry swipes on the screen, red slashes etched over the image of Earth.
“Why are you doing this?” Jish asked him, her voice steadier than she felt.
He didn’t acknowledge her. Instead, he kept aggressively painting red lines over her home world. The action was clear enough for her to understand. They knew where humans came from and were set to destroy it.
“Very well.” Jish’s fear was gone, replaced with firm resolve. She’d make the call to the EF training facilities and to all enlisted stations.
They were at war.
13
Ace
The one thing Ace hadn’t expected was the amount of yelling. From everything he’d heard about being a recruit, it mostly involved getting your face screamed in. In the first few weeks, that had been the case, but as their numbers dwindled from three hundred to a third of that, the shouting decreased. Ace knew a lot of it was to weed out the ones who couldn’t handle being barked orders, but he also assumed it was annoying having to train fresh recruits every few months.
He went through the workout regimen, amazed that he could even move after the sessions. His tiny body was getting stronger quickly. He was still the smallest one here, but he had muscles popping up everywhere, where he’d had nothing but skin and bones only a month before.
The colors were gone now, the squadrons merged into five groups: A, B, C, D, E. He missed his Blue patch and kept it with his belongings as a reminder of how far he’d come in such a short time.
“Need a partner?” Buck asked as he settled to the bench.
The weight machines had built-in spotters, but Ace smiled at his friend and nodded. “How’s infantry training?” he asked Buck through deep pushes of breath.
Buck shrugged. Gone was the goofy kid from a month ago. He was one of the few that could pull off the buzz cut and look like he’d had it his whole life. He was still goofy, but with his strong frame, bulk poured on like he was sculpted from clay.
“It’s good. Not nearly as exciting as becoming a fighter pilot and racing around in an EFF-17, but it’s okay. I’m trying to specialize in weapons so I can avoid ground missions and stay aboard the carriers, shooting enemies down with the new turrets they’re talking about.” Buck grinned at this.
Ace noticed a few female recruits checking Buck out as they kept the workout going. He wasn’t jealous, because he’d never expected much from his own love life. It was as mystical as becoming a member of Earth Fleet.
He kept pushing the weights: up, then down. Up, then down. His arms were beginning to weaken, but with some urging from Buck, he did two more and let it go.
“Buck, did you ever wonder who they’re training us to fight?” Ace asked quietly, so no one would hear him.
Buck looked surprised at his question. “I’m not sure I get what you mean.”
Ace let out a frustrated sigh and leaned close to Buck, whispering. “What are we here for? Who are we fighting? Is there a hidden terrorist threat on Pluto we don’t know about?”
Buck’s eyes widened, as if he hadn’t contemplated this at all before that moment. “There probably is a threat out there. What about all those people that went missing from the Moons back in the day? Maybe they started a colony out there and have produced an army.”
Ace had heard a few conspiracies, and that was a far-fetched one, but for all he knew, it had some merit.
“Could be.” Ace decided to keep his thoughts under wraps. The last thing he wanted was some brown-nosing recruit overhearing him, and telling everyone Ace didn’t believe in the Earth Fleet. Because even though he didn’t know why they needed so much weaponry, he did believe in them. It was the first time in his short life that he felt like part of something, part of a family.
“Legs are next,” Buck said, leading the way across the open-air gym. They didn’t have to worry about weather under the moon’s dome, so most of the training areas were outdoors. Ace preferred it that way. The dome was always the same temperature; no wind, no rain, no snow falling on him as he tried to sleep on the hard ground. It was ideal.
Ace spotted the two former Orange goons sitting by the leg station. One still wore bandages over his punching hand, where he’d hit the wall instead of Ace a couple weeks prior.
Ace started to move away. “Let’s come back to legs later.”
Buck grabbed his arm and shook his head. “Legs are next,” he said, tugging Ace’s forearm.
Ace knew his friend had seen the goons too. Frankly, Ace was surprised the two guys had made it this far. He’d hoped they would’ve have been kicked out by now, but he supposed even the Earth Fleet needed cannon fodder. The thought made him smile as they stopped by the machines.
“Look, Pete, this kid is grinning like a cat who got the rat,” the taller of the two said.
“It’s cat who got the canary,” Ace informed the two of them quietly.
“What’s that?” the shorter, wider one – who evidently was named Pete – asked.
“Never mind,” Buck said. “You two done over here?”
Pete spat on the ground. “Nah. Just getting started.”
“It looks like you two are sitting around on your fat asses while some of us are training,” Buck said, stepping closer to the two of them.
Ace wanted to avoid an altercation, but he was ready for it if necessary. If they hit Buck, he was going to jump in and test his newly-formed muscles. They’d been training in hand-to-hand for the past two weeks, an hour every day, and he was confident he could take one of these thugs down.
He saw a fist clench at the tall goon’s side just as an alarm rang out. The noise was startling, and everyone around them stopped what they were doing, looking around like lost puppies. The lone instructor at the training station looked up from his holopad and barked orders.
“Go to your appropriate stations, recruits. This is not a drill! I repeat, this is not a drill!” His face was red as he shouted.
“Looks like we’
re ready for the big leagues,” Ace said to Buck. The goons were already stumbling away, heading back to the base.
Ace ran after them, anxious to see what could cause an alarm at the Earth Fleet Moon Base.
Flint
“Europa awaits,” Kat said as the screen’s image zoomed in on the moon, and Flint couldn’t help but feel a thrill as he saw it from this angle. The moon wasn’t the largest, but it was the most beautiful. The colonies on the surface were far more advanced than the crap settled on Mars, and he knew that was primarily because of the private funds put into it by a group of investors from the twenty-fourth century. Many of their families still lived there, and a lot of them were Flint’s clients.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it?” Kat asked as they stared at the moon. Lines appeared to be scratched into the surface, but Flint knew from doing a surface walk that they were chiefly cracks in the ground. In the distance, the massive gas giant Jupiter hung like an overprotective parent, ever-present in their midst.
While no one could survive on Jupiter, it was Flint’s favorite planet to watch. Seeing the constant angry storms somehow relaxed him and made him feel like his small problems didn’t matter to the universe. There were bigger fish to fry. Still, watching it this time, he didn’t feel the same way. His problems weren’t going to go away so easily.
“Kat, you’re sure the codes will be accepted?” Flint asked his co-pilot.
“You paid good money for them, but that was three years ago. As long as you trust your source, we should be fine. It’s the personal IDs I’m more concerned with.” Kat slowed the ship and made for Europa at a gentle and steady speed.
Rift Page 12
